Following Poor Locums

[Pharmanaut]

No-one could prove it. Nothing to analyse...

The way things are you would have to prove that you didn't make an error.
So you could be prosecuted, found guilty and lose your career because of that.

[SolomonQ]

when that lady got a suspended sentence for supplying the wrong med. do you think they took the propanolol tablets and analysed them to see if they were really propanolol? they just looked at the packaging. just like they would with homeopathic meds. Saying that they are all the same thing would be a poor defence.

[howe928]

Hi Locums

Are you fed up with following a locum from the day before, who left you a stack of work because that chapter in his book just had to be read?

Seriously, I am finding myself following on from people who just don't care, don't work, and just leave most of it for somebody else.

Does this happen to other people too?

It happens to me all the time. But it's not just locums.

I've met plenty of lazy managers and plenty of managers that have too much paperwork to do to get the actual Rxs done.

But I think lazy locums are the worst because they give the rest of us a bad name.

you feel like shooting the pharmacist who worked the previous day when you arrived the next morning and all the dispensed medicines waiting to be checked say good morning to you and you found newspaper leftover from yesterday

to be a peace keeper, you think what might have caused this the previous day

from locum point of view, if the pharmacist worked the previous day tried to solve problematic scripts and doing paperwork recording, dealing with shoplifting reporting, accidents or emergency reporting, staff training etc and have no time to check calling back scripts then it is fair enough (or some pharmacist knows they have reach their checking capacity and cannot guarantee saftety so do not check anymore?)

from pharmacist managers point of view, they got a lot of paperworks to go through and they would be very grateful for locum pharmacists who just get on with checking (that's why they book locum in the first place to help them) but not locums spending time trying to fill in an hour sheet and want to leave early, chat a lot on the phone (not script intervention just some topic out of interest e.g. football) but sometime you pity your pharmacist colleagues who work too hard (ignore toilet calls, ignore the eyes call to see a distance object once a while, ignore lunch call)

[howe928]

a script from friday, no stock in the pharmacy, have to order it in for Saturday, inform customer to call back on saturday to collect them

is it a normal practice just to order the item and left the script in a basket?

what about dosage check? strength check? quantity check? does this need to be checked on a weekday (Monday - friday) because no surgery is normally open on saturday

[Shaeeb]

Its worse when a patient brings in an FP10(MDA) with methadone mixture prescribed on it, and you come to realise that when you look in the CD cupboard there is nothing but the Sugar Free version!

[Pharmanaut]

Its worse when a patient brings in an FP10(MDA) with methadone mixture prescribed on it, and you come to realise that when you look in the CD cupboard there is nothing but the Sugar Free version!

That's happened.
Just ask if they would have the sugar-free for this once?

[Shaeeb]

On this occasion it was okay as the patient was previously Rx'd the SF version...also made a record in the CD reg (SF section) and left a note for the regular pharmacist.

P.s. what would happen if you realised an entry made in the CD reg was incorrect? What are the consequences in general?

[theboyleo]

...And following on from my Transtec adventures from yeaterday:
Today's lunchtime hour was taken up by concerted attempts by myself and a very patient and understanding Macmillan Nurse, to try & get some Diamorphine sorted out for a terminally-ill patient's syringe-driver: The GP had issued a Rx for Diamorphine 5mg-ampoules, which we can't get hold of; we 'phoned around all the pharmacies in a 15-mile radius, to no avail; I had some 10mg-ampoules in stock, but we couldn't get in touch with the GP to change the script because the surgery was closed for the afternoon "for staff training"...
So what would YOU have done?

Dispensed the 10mg and got the prescription changed. So long as the nurses were fully aware of the strength change. There is an obvious duty of care to the palliative patient here, and I cant see anyone pursuing any charges against a pharmacist for dispensing this! As regards the Butrans, I think the situation is the same, speak to the Doc and get a faxed script, again not legal, but duty of care and all that!

[lamzee]

It's time for all the ridiculous CD rules to be abolished. They cause nothing but trouble.

[Pharmanaut]

It's time for all the ridiculous CD rules to be abolished. They cause nothing but trouble.

But doesn't navigating through the minefield of rules and regulations make the job far more interesting?